


Retail Hell

by huffpuffmcguff



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Bad Pick Up Lines, F/F, Flirting, Fluff and Humor, Retail AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-01 21:29:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2788388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huffpuffmcguff/pseuds/huffpuffmcguff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla shamelessly flirts with the clothing store employee, Laura, who is totally into it</p>
            </blockquote>





	Retail Hell

**Author's Note:**

> i went shopping today and thought of this idea in the middle of an urban outfitters, idk what to tell y'all

Laura hates working retail. She hates the hours, she hates the “customer is always right” mentality (seriously, sometimes the customer is _wrong_ ), and she especially hates how little she gets paid. But the employee discount is good, so that’s something.

She’s re-rearranging the leather pants that are supposed to be in order of size, but since this morning have become a disorganized mess, when a customer wanders in. A particularly gorgeous one, at that, and she catches Laura's eye. She’s all pale skin and dark clothes and hair and eyes, except for her perfectly applied lipstick, which is a shade darker than cherry red. Laura drops the pants she’s holding and the hanger clatters loudly to the floor. Laura hears her co-worker, LaFontaine, stifle a giggle from the register, and she shoots them a quick glare. They grin implicatively, and Laura blushes. 

The girl doesn’t seem to notice, though, and ambles into the store without so much as a glance in Laura’s direction. She's rifling through sweaters, leaving them unfolded as she moves along the table. Laura huffs, and goes to re-fold them, thinking that there's _no way_ she gets paid enough to just tidy up after grown people all day.

“Let me know if I can help you find anything,” Laura says, pointedly. When she looks up from the sweater she has just folded, she’s met with direct eye contact from the girl from across the table, and she finds that can’t read her expression _at all_. It’s alarming, and for a moment, Laura feels trapped, but not even like, _bad_ -trapped, just-

She's interrupted from her thought-spiral when the girl purrs, “Will do, cutie.” And then the girl is walking away, deeper into the store. Laura watches her go, her mind distant, then shakes her head to clear it.

When Laura has restored the table of sweaters to its original, organized state, she looks around the store contentedly - only to realize that the girl has now wrought havoc upon the rack of button-downs, leaving several of them to dangle askew on their hangers. She sighs and trudges towards them. 

“Is this one the same shirt you’re wearing, cupcake?” Laura spins around, and the girl is holding a red flannel shirt that indeed matches the one she’s wearing.

“Yeah, it is! It’s from our new winter line, I love it,” Laura says, turning on the cheer despite her exasperation with this girl, who must be the customer from hell, “I wear it all the time, it’s so easy to wear just with jeans or whatever.” 

She smirks, and drawls. “I like it, though I think I’ll try it _without_ jeans.” 

Laura is struck dumb. _Was she just… flirt-…?_ But then the girl plucks a pair of leather pants from the rack, and with a devilish wink, saunters toward the dressing rooms.

Okay, so, she wasn't _flirting,_ she just wanted to try it with the leather pants instead of jeans. That’s normal. Except, who winks? Ever?

Slightly flustered, Laura follows the girl to the dressing rooms to set up a room for her. “Just those two items?” The girl nods. “What’s your name?"

“Carmilla.”

Laura can hear the smirk in her voice, and she feels the girl’s- _Carmilla’s_ eyes on her as she writes her name in loopy script on the small blackboard of the dressing room door. She’s pretending that a blush isn’t creeping up her neck and that her hand isn’t trembling holding the chalk. 

“Alright, go right ahead, just come find me if you need anything,” Laura says breathily, ushering Carmilla in as she rambles through her spiel, “I’ll be happy to go find you another size or style of whatever you need. My name is Laura."

“Sure thing, creampuff.” The dressing room door shuts with a click, and Laura exhales a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. She’s standing, frozen, lost in thought. _Why is this girl like, the most inconsiderate? But she’s so hot, though? How is this fair? Wait, what did she just call me? Didn’t I literally just tell her my name?_

Moments later, Carmilla emerges again, and Laura realizes how weird it must be that she had just stood outside her dressing room door the entire time she was changing. She spins on her heel to go busy herself with something else - like, maybe those button-downs Carmilla had left awry?

“Hold on, cupcake, I want to get your opinion on something.” Laura stops, and turns, and Carmilla is standing square in front of the three-panel mirror, folding up the sleeves of the red flannel shirt, which drapes flawlessly from her shoulders. The leather pants, meanwhile, fit her better than they fit the mannequin, or any human being ever, probably. Laura’s mouth goes dry. 

“So, how does this look?” Camilla says in a tone that implies she knows _exactly_ how it looks. Laura’s jaw hangs loose, and she can’t re-hinge it in time to form words, so she just sort of gapes and stutters. Carmilla raises one perfect eyebrow. “No complaints, then?"

“Uh… No! Opposite of complaints. Compliments, rather!” Laura fumbles, then takes a moment to recalibrate her brain. “It flatters you,” she manages finally. It's short, but it's a coherent sentence, and that is an accomplishment.

But then, Carmilla is swaggering up to Laura and reaching out to fiddle with the hem of _her_ flannel shirt, and she whispers, “I think I prefer the shirt on you.” She tugs a little bit - not enough to pull Laura forward, but enough to fry her brain altogether, and adds, “Though I’m beginning to wonder how it might look if it weren’t on you at all."

Laura sucks in a breath and shuts her eyes, thinking that if she cuts off all sensory faculties, she won’t melt into a puddle in the middle of her workplace.

“That was really cheesy,” Laura murmurs. But, from the darkness behind her eyes, she hears the faintest laugh and then the pitch of Carmilla's voice, and the melting process begins.

"Yeah, I guess it was. But something tells me you don’t really mind.” And she definitely doesn’t.

Laura opens her eyes again when she hears Carmilla reenter her dressing room. Dazed, Laura walks back into the main part of the store. She finds that LaFontaine has already fixed the disarranged button-down rack, and she silently curses that for once, she has nothing to busy herself with. 

Just then, Carmilla comes out of the dressing rooms again and Laura doesn’t know what to say, so she defaults to retail-worker-etiquette.

“So, um, did you find everything okay?"

“Yeah, I did, except,” Carmilla pulls her phone from her back pocket, “I couldn’t find your number in my phone."

Laura can’t help but laugh, and she covers her face with her hands to hide her blush. “You are _so_ corny."

“You like it.” And she definitely does.


End file.
